Baby Boot Camp

Sophie recently had her 6 month (gestational age) NICU appointment. This appointment was for preemies to see if they were developing normally. There were 6 specialists; including a speech path, a gross motor specialist, a fine motor specialist, a nutritionist, a well baby doctor, and the general pediatrician. They watched Sophie play for a half-hour, and interact with us while they made many notes. Needless to say it was a little intimidating. I asked if we got the biggest preemie award and they all laughed. I think they thought I was joking.

When the results were in they told us more tummy time. Ugh the dreaded tummy time. Sophie has always hated tummy time, before she could roll over she would almost always spit up within the first minute of being placed on her tummy. Now that she can roll over, she does so immediately. So we have had to do a little baby boot camp. We have been putting her on her tummy over, and over, and over- and even blocking her from rolling over. We have used many "forbidden" objects to entice her to stay on her tummy, like remotes and cell phones. Sadly, Carl's cell phone was recently drooled to death, and he became yet another parent whose child destroyed their phone. This of course is incredibly ironic, because we swore (before we were parents) that we would never let our children play with cell phones and remotes. Ha! But Carl's cell phone did not die in vain, as she can now get up into all fours, and stays on her tummy for up to a minute! She is still a long way from crawling, but we have hope that one day she will!

I love books!

I started to read to Sophie every day before naps when she was 6 months old. She liked books immediately. I've then discovered that some of them are too exciting to read before trying to sleep- such as Feely Bugs. Surprisingly, at this young age, she has favorite books. Right now her favorite book is Good Night Moon. (She will keep reaching for this book until I read it to her.) This is especially neat because it used to be one of my favorites. It has been a lot of fun to watch her discover new things about each book- a flap here, a bumpy part there. I look forward to keep reading to her, there are so many great books out there!

Oh yes, our Sophie is so advanced that she can read books while holding them upside down. We are quite proud.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a terrific trip to Portland, and were lucky enough to spend 9 days there. Sophie once again proved that she is a great traveler, and had no problems with any of the flights. (Although the man whose hair Sophie pulled while waiting in line might disagree.) Sophie had a wonderful time at Nana's house. She greatly enjoyed playing and reading books with Nana, and playing with Rosie the dog. Every time Rosie would walk by her she would give her a big smile and greet her with a laugh. She did not care much for the cat Suta- and the feelings were mutual. We are looking forward to going back at Christmas.

Sophie had lots of fun playing with Nana

Reading books is one of her favorite activities

Sophie and her new friend Rosie

Sophie Laughs Again!

Back by popular demand! Sophie was finishing her lunch today- licking the bowl clean- when I sneezed. She started to laugh so I quickly grabbed the camera to catch her laughing again. Enjoy!

Food, glorious food!

In honor of Thanksgiving coming up, Sophie thought that this week's entry should be dedicated to food. Sophie has loved eating solid food. It is very exciting. When we put her bib on her she starts kicking her little feet and waving her hands. She has been a very good eater, she sees the spoon coming and opens wide. I have enjoyed making all of Sophie's food and feel strangely impressed with my new found ability to boil, puree, and freeze. Yes, I am a true wonder in the kitchen.

We have been surprised at how much she likes her veggies! She eats all the things that Carl and I won't touch- squash, green beans, peas, carrots, and sweet potatoes. Shockingly, the food group that she does not like is fruit! I don't know if it's the texture or the tart flavor, but so far she does not like peaches, applesauce or pears. This does not mean that she will not eat them- oh no, she will just make a face each time the offending fruit is placed into her mouth and then proceed to finish the bowl.

Here is Sophie making faces while eating peaches:

Sophie Laughs

Sophie has given us small chuckles here and there, but just recently she has been doing big belly laughs. It usually happens when a certain sound strikes her as funny. On Saturday night we were getting her ready for her bath, and Carl was squeezing out the last bit of baby shampoo from the bottle. We luckily had the camera close and were able to catch it!

Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween! We dressed Sophie up as a bunny and took her to three of our friends homes. Three stops was perfect, she did not enjoy getting in and out of the car seat after the third house. Of course everyone thought that she was the cutest bunny ever- I think her cheeks really helped complete the costume!

I love this picture because you can see Sophie eyeing the candy. We ended up holding her up over the candy basket to see what she would do. She immediately grabbed a piece of candy and started chewing on the wrapper. We took it away and put that piece aside... We did not know who else would appreciate Sophie's drool of approval. For the record, Sophie chose a Butterfinger. Looks like she inherited her mom's sweet tooth!This picture is great because Sophie was trying her hardest to chew on the stem of the pumpkin. I caught her in the act!

Here is our pumpkin with the pumpkins! Yes, it's the best I can come up with for now.

Two Little Teeth

During Sophie's sickness she sprouted two little teeth! Finally! Over the last two months, whenever she was fussy or had trouble sleeping we kept blaming it on her teeth. (Those poor teeth were blamed for everything!) Now that it has finally happened, it is very fascinating for Sophie. She is constantly putting a finger or two in her mouth to feel her teeth. She seems to just sit there and try to figure out what is happening inside her mouth. Now that she has her teeth she is like a little puppy, she will chew on anything! She will grab for your fingers and put them in her mouth, you have to be careful- those little teeth are sharp!

During the last few weeks, Sophie has been trying hard to sit up. She is finally getting the hang of it- but you still have to sit close by as she will often topple over to the side. She seems to really like shoes, that's my girl! and will often make a lunge for your feet. We are hoping that this excitement of shoes and reaching for them might interest her in crawling. Currently she does not like to be on her tummy, no matter what sort of items are in front of her. She will simply roll over the minute you place her face down. We will have to see what happens.It saddens me to say this, but Sophie loves watching football. Were not sure why, but whenever it is on TV it gains her interest. She will even stop drinking from her bottle to watch the game- and this is a big deal because eating is Sophie's favorite thing to do. This picture was taken when Sophie was watching football and I thought her expression was funny, almost as if she had placed a bet on who was going to win the game, and was anxiously awaiting the outcome.
Sophie is now starting to stand, but she is very wobbly. It is kind of like watching someone hula-hoop, without a hoop. Her little hips swing forward and back as she tries to balance. We of course think that this is very cute, and keep telling her that we are laughing with her-not at her.

Sick Baby!

Sophie has been very sick this last week with the RSV virus. RSV is basically a bad cold that settles into your chest and lungs. She sounds like a mini Darth Vader when she breathes and has a nasty cough. We are going to go in and get breathing treatments and shots to help prevent her from getting this again. In the meantime, the doctors have advised us to build her a tent- yes, a tent- so that she is breathing in humidified air when she sleeps. Carl built the tent, and was strangely excited to do so, around her pack-n-play. She does not seem to mind being in it, but it is kind of sad to kiss her goodnight, and then cover her up. Hopefully we will be out of the tent soon!

Sophie's tent

Inside view of tent

Sophie inside her tent- she has to keep her head elevated while she sleeps, so she sleeps on her boppy, but usually wiggles off of it by the middle of the night.

6 months!

Sophie recently turned 6 months old. We can't believe that she has been here for half a year already! We took her into the 6 month check-up, and were excited to find out how much she has grown. Boy were we surprised! Sophie now weighs 18.10 pounds (yes, I am getting seriously toned arms) and is 27 3/4 inches long. This puts her at the 90th percentile for weight and 95th percentile for length. At least she is proportionate! We had suspected that she was growing at a fast rate, as pants that I had bought 2 weeks ago are now capris. Oh well, I guess that means more shopping!

To Bozeman we will go!

This weekend we traveled to Bozeman- which is five hours away- and met up with Carl's family for the Montana State football game. Sophie had many "firsts" on this trip:

*First road trip

*First time in a hotel

*First time in a pool
*First time in single digit weather- yes, freezing in Montana is not just a clever name, it was 6 degrees outside

*First time watching a football game

*First time being a disappointed Bob Kitty fan

For all these firsts, Sophie did extremely well and proved to be an excellent traveler. She also proved to be her mother's daughter as she only lasted the first few minutes of the game, before wishing to leave. All of the screaming and clapping scared her, and she could not understand why people were doing these things during her nap time. We lasted a total of 15 minutes before Carl took us back to the hotel.

Here are some of our favorite pics from the weekend:

Sophie's first dip in the pool. As you can see from her expression she is saying, "this pool is cold!"

After the cold pool experience, Sophie played in the bath tub with her Daddy to warm up.

To get ready to go to the game she wore a fleece outfit, a fleece bunting outfit, and was covered in a fleece blanket. Yes, lots of fleece! By the time we got to the game her cheeks were rosy red. Thanks to Uncle Ry Ry for getting her this cute bunting outfit.

Favorite Things

Sophie is quickly becoming a big girl. She now likes to hold her own bottle. Although she still struggles with the weight of a full bottle, she can now hold it for several seconds by herself when it is halfway full. Our little lady is growing up quickly!!

Who needs toys? Sophie's new favorite thing to do every morning is to play with my cereal bar wrapper. What's not to love about a shiny, crinkly wrapper? It provides fun for easily a half hour and has the extra benefit of a fruity smell.

Let's eat!

Lately Sophie has really been interested in watching us eat. She follows the food from the plate to our mouths and back to the plate again. We figured that since she is now 24 weeks, it's time to start rice cereal. Here are the pictures from her first cereal experience. For the record, I don't think that any cereal actually made it into her mouth, but when we tried it again the next day she ate the whole bowl!

Hey, wait what's going on?

Hmmm, what is this?

I can do it myself, thank you very much!

All done! Oh, do I have a little something on my chin?

5 months old already!

Today is Sophie's 5 month birthday. We've seen a lot of changes in her this past month, her little personality is starting to emerge! She is smiling a lot more, and is generally a happy baby. As you can see from the picture, she is a drooly mess! She now always has to wear a bib, sometimes several, throughout the day. She has mastered grabbing near by objects and loves to chew anything in sight! Her favorite chew toy is currently her burp cloth- this can entertain her happily for 45 minutes. She has also started to "talk" and will look right at you and babble and coo, as if she has something important to tell you. She also loves blowing raspberries, and I will catch her doing this over her monitor in the middle of the night. Right now she is trying very hard to sit up, and has just discovered her toes. One of her favorite toys is her excersaucer where she can practice sitting/standing up and now refuses to play in toys where she lies down, like her once loved bouncy chair and swing. It has been very fun to watch her grow, we will have to see what happens this month!

Let's get together, yeah, yeah, yeah

This past weekend, my 3 good friends from Pepperdine got together in Searchlight, Nevada. We have all had babies within the last year and a half. We had visions of going out to eat, swimming and playing in the lake all afternoon, and possibly doing some shopping. Well, needless to say the babies ruled the weekend and we were lucky to get out the door in between all the nap times. But we did manage to go to the lake- and stayed for over a half-hour! Which I thought was extremely good since it was 110 degrees outside. Most importantly though we got to sit, catch up, and watch our beautiful babies.
Here is a shot of all the babies- as you can see Sophie is the chunkiest. From left to right is Sophie, 5 months, Haiden- Jamie's baby, 9 months, and the man of the house for the weekend, Charlotte- Rebecca's baby,17 months, and Rori- Ashleigh's baby, 12 months. We all had great intentions of taking lots of pictures, but somehow our hands were always full. We look forward to doing it again sometime.

Baptism

The last month of summer was jammed packed and flew by extremely quickly. While my family came to visit, we had Sophie's baptism. This event brought quite the crowd, we had 20 people come and filled up 3 pews. It was quite a big event for our church, and I still have people come up to me and tell me what a wonderful baptism it was. I think that Sophie's outfit helped, although Carl thought the hat was a little much.

Let's go for a swim!

This past weekend was really hot, so hot in fact that I thought it was time for Sophie to experience her first swim. We filled up the pool and then let it bake in the sun for a couple of hours. It was still not hot enough, so we added boiling water and got it close to bath temp. I was hoping that she would splash around, like she does in her bath, but she seemed pretty confused. You could almost see her thinking, this is not my bath, and why am I wearing this silly swimsuit? Carl saw that I was preoccupied with the camera and saw his opportunity to swoop Sophie out of the pool and into lake. To my utter surprise, she did not cry and seemed pretty content until the water splashed onto her back. I have a feeling we have a little lake girl!

100 Days!

On Saturday, Sophie was 100 days old! Aside from growing 5 inches and gaining 7 pounds- oh yes, she is our big girl- we have seen a lot of changes in her. Here is a new list of likes and dislikes:

Likes

1. She still likes to be held, but her favorite position has changed from laying on your chest with her head tucked under your chin to being cradled. Sophie would be perfectly happy being held all day, it has been quite the challenge to get her to sleep in her crib and not on us.



2. Eating. Eating is a very serious activity and should not be delayed in anyway- see dislike number 1. In addition to being held all day, Sophie would like to eat all day as well. She is now on a schedule but still tries to convince us that she should be eating more, and more often.



3. She likes anything that moves. This includes her swing, bouncy chair, stroller, and even her car seat- she knows that the car seat goes in the stroller or car and both of these things move.


Dislikes

1. Being burped. Being burped is a major flaw in her joy of eating. She will do anything to get out of burping. This includes whining, crying, trying to sit, even trying to stand, and arching her back in a dramatic 2 year old temper tantrum style. We may have our work cut out for us in a couple of years, as she is already executing this tantrum tactic quite well.



2. Being cold. Sophie still loves her bath, and is starting to splash around in the water which has been quite fun, but the 5 minutes after the bath are a race to get her diaper and pajamas on as quick as possible as she will scream until she is toasty warm again.



3. Cold water. The first time Carl dipped Sophie's toes in the water she fussed, but did not let out a major cry. Carl then proceeded to dip her little toes in the water every weekend until she let him know that this would not be tolerated any longer by letting out a couple of big screams. The score so far stands as Sophie 1 Carl 0.

First Hike

We went on our first hike with Sophie this past weekend. We hiked up to Avalanche Lake, which is one of our favorite hikes, and were pleased at how well Sophie did. Carl carried her in our front pack, and the combination of the motion while walking, with the body heat from Carl knocked her out both ways. Sophie was quite the hit on the hike, everyone we passed made a comment about our youngest hiker. It made me think that people went home and told everyone that they saw a cute baby on the hike, and oh some glaciers too. It was such a successful trip that we will have to do it again!